They shall not build, and another inhabit;

They shall not plant, and another eat."-Isaiah, lxv. 21, 22.

Sometimes the correspondence is one of contrast :

"For the mountains shall depart,
And the hills be removed;

But my kindness shall not depart from thee,

Neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed."
Isaiah, liv. 10.

And there are also parallelisms where the correspondence consists merely in the similar form of construction :

"How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob!
And thy tabernacles, O Israel!

As the valleys are they spread forth,

As gardens by the river's side,

As the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted,
And as cedar-trees beside the waters."

Numbers, xxiv. 5, 6.

Now, strange as this parallelistic arrangement may sound to modern ears, no form of verse could have been framed more entirely accordant with the nature and purposes of Scripture poetry. Among the Hebrews, poetry was always united to music; and as the music was performed in alternate chorus-one choir repeating and prolonging the strain of the other-the poet's hemistichs required to correspond in an alternation of parts. Its adaptation to the ancient method of singing is, however, the least of the recommendations of this peculiar metre. Parallelism has enabled the Hebrew poems to resist the darkness which time brings over other writings, and to repair the losses which the negligence of transcribers has occasioned. While every sentence has its correspondent and equivalent member, the sense which in one is obscured, in the other remains perfect; or if an error should have crept into each, it is impossible that they should be parallel errors at once corresponding to each other and to the general structure of the context. A conjectural reading, too, has much more certainty here than in other writings, since the conjecture is checked by the condition that the conjectural reading must suit both members of the sentence.

How congruous is such a structure to the purpose of writings intended for the religious instruction of all ages! We may trace in it the same wise design as in the structure of the human body; for, from the frame being double, the loss of one eye does not altogether deprive us of sight, nor the loss of one limb, of the power of moving.

But has not Parallelism too much the air of rhetorical artifice, to be in keeping with the unstudied simplicity of the Scripture style? On a cursory glance it has. But we are misled here, as in many other cases, by our preconceived notions. We make our own system of versification the standard of comparison; and because another system is dissimilar to ours, we rashly pronounce it unnatural and artificial. Parallelism, so far from being a refinement of art, is really the primordial and simplest form of metrical composition. In the earliest stages of language-before syllables admitted of being accurately scanned and measured-a symmetrical arrangement of ideas and words was the only method of distinguishing poetry from prose, and therefore the only form of poetic verse. We learn from the specimens preserved in the Pentateuch, that the poetry of the Antediluvians, and also of the Edomites and Amorites, was cast in the parallelistic mould; and travellers inform us that a similar structure characterizes the rude verses of most modern semi-barbarous tribes. Even in languages which employ a versification of measured syllables, some vestiges may be discerned of an older style of composition closely resembling the Hebrew model. The verses of the Grecian oracles are occasionally parallelistic; and even some of the choicest Greek metresfor example, the Elegiac and the Sapphic-are indebted for their charm, as much to the symmetrical proportion of their alternate parts as to their fine rhythmical intonation: while in modern tongues, those correspondences of sound which we call Rhyme, may be traced, for their origin, to the uniform movement of the parallelism.

It is not, then, the sweet singers of Israel, but the poets of other nations, that have innovated on the system of nature, and adopted the fastidious refinements of art. The truth is, that parallelism, instead of being an artifice of rhet

oric, is one of those figures of speech in which strong feeling instinctively and unconsciously clothes itself. Strong feeling is never satisfied with the simple assertion of a sentiment. It delights to express it again and again, and to recast it in a series of symmetrical forms. In resorting to the parallelism, the Hebrew poets only obeyed the promptings of nature; and it is just because they wrote from the spontaneous impulses of the heart, that the figure is in their pages invariably beautiful. In the hands of an affected or artificial writer, this method of ceaseless reiteration would inevitably become languid and monotonous. But the Hebrew Muse is never tiresome. In repeating the same idea in different words, she seems as if displaying a fine opal, that discovers fresh beauty in every new light to which it is turned. Her amplifications of a given thought are like the echoes of a solemn melody; her repetitions of it, like the landscape reflected in the stream. And while her questions and responses give a life-like effect to her compositions, they remind us of the alternate voices in public devotion, to which they were adapted, and help us to connect with the pleasures of taste the higher pleasures of piety.

THE TEMPLE OF FAME.

BUT in the centre of the hallowed choir,
Six pompous columns o'er the rest aspire;
Around the shrine itself of Fame they stand,
Hold the chief honours, and the fane command.
High on the first, the mighty Homer shone;
Eternal adamant composed his throne;
Father of verse! in holy fillets drest,

His silver beard waved gently o'er his breast:
Though blind, a boldness in his looks appears;
In years
he seemed, but not impaired by years.
The wars of Troy were round the pillar seen:
Here fierce Tydides wounds the Cyprian Queen;
Here Hector, glorious from Patroclus' fall,
Here dragged in triumph round the Trojan wall.

Motion and life did every part inspire,
Bold was the work, and proved the master's fire.
A golden column next in rank appeared,
On which a shrine of purest gold was reared;
Finished the whole, and laboured every part,
With patient touches of unwearied art:
The Mantuan there in sober triumph sate,
Composed his posture, and his look sedate;
On Homer still he fixed a reverent eye,
Great without pride, in modest majesty.
In living sculpture on the sides were spread
The Latian wars, and haughty Turnus dead;
Elissa stretched upon the funeral pyre,
Æneas bending with his aged sire;

Troy flamed in burning gold, and o'er the throne
Arms and the Man in golden ciphers shone.

Four swans sustain a car of silver bright,

With heads advanced, and pinions stretched for flight:

Here, like some furious prophet, Pindar rode,
And seemed to labour with the inspiring god:
Across the harp a careless hand he flings,
And boldly sinks into the sounding strings.
The figured games of Greece the column grace,
Neptune and Jove survey the rapid race;
The youths hang o'er their chariots as they run;
The fiery steeds seem starting from the stone:
The champions in distorted postures threat;
And all appeared irregularly great.

Here happy Horace tuned the Ausonian lyre To sweeter sounds, and tempered Pindar's fire; Pleased with Alcæus' manly rage to infuse

The softer spirit of the Sapphic Muse.

The polished pillar different sculptures grace;
A work outlasting monumental brass.
Here smiling Loves and Bacchanals appear;
The Julian star, and great Augustus here:
The Doves, that round the infant Poet spread
Myrtles and bays, hang hovering o'er his head.

These massy columns in a circle rise,

O'er which a pompous dome invades the skies: Scarce to the top I stretched my aching sight, So large it spread. and swelled to such a height.

Full in the midst proud Fame's imperial seat
With jewels blazed magnificently great.
When on the goddess first I cast my sight,
Scarce seemed her stature of a cubit's height;
But swelled to larger size, the more I gazed,
Till to the roof her towering front she raised.
With her, the temple every moment grew,
And ampler vistas opened to my view:
Upward the columns shoot, the roofs ascend,
And arches widen, and long aisles extend.
Such was her form, as ancient Bards have told,
Wings raise her arms, and wings her feet infold;
A thousand busy tongues the goddess bears,
A thousand open eyes, a thousand listening ears.
Beneath, in order ranged, the tuneful Nine
(Her virgin handmaids) still attend the shrine;
With eyes on Fame for ever fixed, they sing;
For Fame they raise the voice, and tune the string :
With Time's first birth began the heavenly lays,
And last, eternal, through the length of days.

РОРЕ.

THE WINDS.

THE ready expansibility of air by heat gives rise to those rapid and noisy aerial currents which we call the Winds. When any one part of the atmosphere is more heated than the rest, that part is rarefied, and its greater lightness causes it to rise. When this happens, there necessarily follows a motion of the surrounding air towards that part, in order to restore the equilibrium; this spot, therefore, receives wind from every quarter, until the equilibrium is restored, when the movement ceases, and the air again becomes calm.

In the temperate regions of the earth the winds are very variable, except along the seaboards, where a certain regularity prevails. On the seashore there is generally, at least during summer, a gentle sea-breeze setting in on the land in the evening, to restore the equilibrium which had been disturbed by radiation from the heated surface of the land